“We see the opportunity for a couple of million ounces of gold,” says Mark Ashcroft of Aurelius Minerals Inc (CVE:AUL).
He’s talking about the potential at the company’s Aureus East and Aureus West projects in Nova Scotia, Canada, where drilling last year turned up some highly attractive intercepts on both projects and also gave some indication that there could be mineralisation between the two horizons too.
Not all the results are in yet, though, as assay labs have been backed up as the mining industry booms and coronavirus restrictions constrain capacity.
But Aurelius is already able to draw some concrete conclusions about the opportunity at Aureus East and Aureus West, and to begin to work out what to do next.
“We finished phase one of our exploration and we’ve confirmed the presence of gold mineralisation at depth,” says Ashcroft.
“We’ve drilled as far as 900 metres, and we’ve found mineralisation. We’ll wait for the rest of the assays and then phase two drilling will begin, aimed at defining an NI43-101 resource.”
As it stands, the plan calls for the second round of drilling to begin in the summer of 2021, with a resource for Aureus East likely to be ready early in 2022.
How big the resource will be at that stage is an open question, but it’s unlikely at the outset to be as large as the multi-million ounce resource Ashcroft is hoping eventually to prove up.
These things take time, as Ashcroft recognises in the mantra he adopts for the company: “Define, refine, and re-engineer.”
That’s especially appropriate for Aureus East and Aureus West, where gold has been known, and at times mined, for over a hundred years. Legacy work explains why Aureus East is already permitted for a 300 tonnes per day mill and mine, and could theoretically, from a bureaucratic perspective, be switched back on tomorrow.
Operationally it’s not quite so simple, but in the wider context the permit provides ample indication that this is a project for which there is both precedent and approval. When the new ounces start being proved up too, it oughtn’t be too hard to get going.
And there’s a template for that, too, to a certain degree, anyway.
“We want to be the next Atlantic Gold,” says Ashcroft, referencing the St Barbara-owned subsidiary that operates a two million ounce gold project around 60 kilometres north of the capital of Nova Scotia, Halifax.
“That’s an operation that has all-in sustaining costs of around US$750 per ounce, and produces around 100,000 ounces per year. It shows that Nova Scotia is a destination where it’s possible to do things.”
And lest investors think this is just whistling in the dark, it’s worth noting that some pretty big names agree. Sprott Resource Lending is a prominent name on the Aurelius share register, alongside Northfield Capital and Dundee. The company’s management also owns a significant stake.
“The institutions are supportive,” says Ashcroft, who himself brings a pedigree of experience in the mining industry that goes back more than thirty years.
And it’s not just Nova Scotia that’s attracting interest.
The company also has significant portfolio in Ontario, where one result from the Mikwam property showed 26 metres grading seven grams per tonne gold. There’s already a small resource at Mikwam, and the proximity of a big and powerful neighbour in Detour Gold (now owned by Kirkland) only goes to confirm the prospectivity of the area. What’s more, a sizeable producing mine, Hecla’s Casa Berardi project, lies within 30km of Mikwam.
So there’s lot’s to be upbeat about.
“My gut tells me there’s something there,” says Ashcroft, and he hopes that if funds allow in due course Aurelius will put a further 5,000-to-10,000 metres of drilling into the project.
Time will tell on that, and in the meantime the immediate focus is on those remaining assay results from Aureus East and Aureus West, due back in totality by the end of April, and thereafter on the prospect of setting the drill rigs turning in the summer.
As it stands, Aurelius is not letting the coronavirus stand in its way, as mining has been deemed an essential industry by the relevant authorities. So all told, 2021 should be a very interesting year.